Hellmann's and Best Foods

History

In 1903 Richard Hellmann (1876-1971) emigrated from Vetschau, Germany, to New York City, where in August 1904 he married Margaret Vossberg, whose parents owned a delicatessen. In mid-1905 he opened his own delicatessen at 490 Columbus Avenue, where he developed his first ready-made mayonnaise, dished-out in small amounts to customers. It became so popular that he began selling it in bulk to other stores, constantly improving the recipe to make it avoid spoilage longer.

In 1913 after continuing sales success he built a factory to produce his mayonnaise in even greater quantities, and began selling it on September 1 under the name Hellmann's Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise, seeing sales zoom after switching from hotel-size large stone jars to customer-size clear glass jars that could be reused for home canning after selling them a rubber ring for 1 penny.

In May 1914 he simplified the label from three ribbons to a single blue ribbon, and trademarked it along with the name "Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise". In 1915 he sold his store and opened a small mayonnaise factory at 120 Lawrence Street (now West 126th) in Manhattan; by the end of the year he had a larger factory at 495/497 Steinway Street in Long Island City. In February 1916 the company was incorporated as Richard Hellman, Inc., after which he briefly tried other products, such as horseradish and pumpernickel bread before deciding to concentrate on mayonnaise and expand distribution outside the New York area. In November 1919, he licensed John Behrmann to make the mayonnaise in Chicago.

In 1920, the New York Tribune asked three chefs to rate commercial salad dressing brand, and they voted Hellman's mayonnaise the best, noting that it had more oil (85%) than any other salad dressing they tested. This helped to boost sales.

On July 29, 1920, Hellmann became a U.S. citizen; later that year, Margaret Hellmann died, and on May 11, 1922, he married second wife Nina Maxwell, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Maxwell.

In 1922 after sales of the mayonnaise were launched in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Hellmann began building a larger (5-story) factory at 34-08 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City; while honeymooning in San Francisco, California, Hellmann decided to open a plant there too, setting up an office and soliciting salesmen. In 1922 the first Hellmann's mayonnaise cookbook was published by Behrman in Chicago.

While Hellmann's Mayonnaise thrived on the U.S. East Coast, selling $15 million a year by 1927 with $1 million in profits, the California company Postum Foods (later Best Foods) introduced their own mayonnaise, Best Foods Mayonnaise, which became popular on the West Coast, and was operating a major plant in San Francisco. In August 1927 Postum Foods bought the Hellmann's brand, allowing Hellmann to retire. By then both brands of mayonnaise had such commanding market shares in their respective halves of the country that the company decided that both brands and recipes be preserved along with territories.

To this day:

In 1955 Best Foods acquired Rosefield Packing Co., makers of Skippy peanut butter. In 1958 Best Foods was bought by Corn Products Refining Company to form Corn Products Company, which in 1969 became CPC International Inc. Hellmann's mayonnaise arrived in the United Kingdom in 1961 and by the late 1980s had over 50% market share.

Prior to 1960 Hellmann's and Best Foods were advertised both in the same advertisement, which pointed out that it is known as Hellmann's in the East and Best Foods in the West. Around 1968 the Best Foods brand added the Blue Ribbon from the Hellmann's brand, making them more sister products. Since 2007 both brands have exactly the same design.

In 1997 CPC International split into two companies: Bestfoods, becoming its own company once more (and also including the Hellmann's brand), and Corn Product International. Bestfoods was acquired by Unilever in 2000.

Recipe and marketing issues

When Best Foods acquired the Hellmann's brand, it decided to preserve the respective recipes for both mayonnaises. Today, the two products are made in the same plant. However, at least as recently as June 2003, the recipes were almost identical. From the company's FAQs at the time:

Both labels contain the same ingredients in the same 'relative quantity' order: soybean oil, water, whole eggs & egg yolks, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, calcium disodium EDTA, and natural flavors. Best Foods' may contain more lemon juice, though the ingredients rank ordered by volume are the same as Hellmann's. Still, the fine print in the company's marketing and web sites state that "Hellmann's is known as Best Foods west of the Rockies" and "Best Foods is known as Hellmann's east of the Rockies"

Maintaining the separate identities of both brands in the USA poses some unique challenges. Marketing campaigns for both products are identical; however, Hellmann's and Best Foods must make separate television commercials for each product and cannot utilize nationwide media to market their product.

The Spanish slogan is "Haz una cara ... Hellmann's!" (roughly translated to "Make a Hellmann's face!"). In Brazil, it is "Hellmann's, a verdadeira maionese" (Hellmann's, the true mayonnaise).